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by mschuster91 2041 days ago
> In East Germany, the Soviets did that, albeit violently often, which is why there is a higher rate of Neo-Nazism in the east (apart from the usual issues such as poverty and unemployment).

Sorry, that's wrong. Eastern (Communist) Germany painted itself as an "anti-fascist state by definition", but in reality there were awful lots of Neo-Nazis active in the GDR - and after the Mauerfall Western cadres only had to move in to find faithful people. It's estimated that there were 15.000 (!) Neo-Nazis at the time. See https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/die-ddr-und-ihre-neonazis-rea... or https://www.zeit.de/2012/08/DDR-Nazis for more details.

This "the DDR was antifascist and there were no Nazis there" nonsense is a huge part of why the neo-Nazi problem in the former GDR was overlooked until 2015ff with PEGIDA and other violent far right movements appearing (for many uninitiated) "out of thin air".

1 comments

I did not say the DDR was anti-fascist or something. But there was a concerted effort by the Soviets to purge all forms of Nazism actively - which effectively failed, as per the evidence you provide yourself. A large part of the population resented the Soviet rule and effectively turned to Fascism as a reprieve (something I thought was implied so I skipped mentioning it explicitly). The Soviets went, but Fascism was there to stay.